Bear, Quill, Huge
- Armor Class
- 2 [17]
- Hit Dice
- 7
- Attacks
- Bite or Claw (1d6+2)
- Special
- regeneration, hug (2d10)
- Move
- 12
- HDE/XP
- 7/600
Description
Bears attack by rending opponents with their claws, dragging them in and biting them. All bears are very tough to kill, and are able to move and attack for one round after losing all hit points.
A Quill-Bear looks like a large bear with long, razor- sharp spikes covering its back and sides. This ursine creature is as massive as a typical brown bear, weighing more than 1,800 pounds and standing about 9 feet when it rears up on its hind legs. The huge variety is even larger, standing up to 12 feet tall and weighing over 2,600 pounds. As with other bears, a roll of 20 on a d20 with a claw attack against an opponent means that opponent has automatically been hugged and suffers 2d10 points of hug damage.
The quills of a quill-bear move as it moves, waving and shaking. Any creatures within 5 feet of a quill-bear as it walks or runs suffers 1d8 points of damage; a successful saving throw is allowed to avoid this damage. However, anyone who attacks a quill-bear with a melee weapon (except for a pole arm or spear) must come within range of the spikes and thus suffers 1d8 points of damage automatically with no saving throw allowed.
The quill-bear is normally a cowardly creature (hence the first given morale score) and avoids large groups of potential enemies. Most of the time one lives a solitary life, foraging for nuts and berries and sometimes carrion in the forest. During a full moon a quill-bear's behavior changes quite dramatically, becoming aggressive and bloodthirsty; use the morale score in parenthesis at such a time. During the full moon the creature's diet becomes entirely carnivorous, with a marked preference for larger prey such as horses and humanoid creatures, and the quill-bear will seek them out deliberately. This change in behavior applies both day and night during a full moon, even if the moon cannot be seen; however, as the quill-bear is nocturnal, one will not normally be encountered hunting in the daylight.
When under the light of a full moon, the quill-bear grows larger and gains a hit die; treat the extra hit points thus gained in a fashion similar to a potion of heroism. While exposed to moonlight, a common quill-bear will regenerate damage at a rate of 2 hit points per round, while the huge variety regenerates 3 hit points per round. If the creature is killed but its body is left in moonlight, there is a 60% chance that the bear will arise again in 2d4 rounds with half of its hit points restored.
See Also
Other creatures in the Bear category: Bear, Battle, Bear, Black, Bear, Cave, Bear, Dream, Bear, Ghost, Bear, Grizzly (or Brown), Bear, Long, Bear, Migou, Bear, Polar, Bear, Quill, Common, Bear, Ursine Behemoth.
Source note: This creature is converted from The Basic Fantasy Field Guide of Creatures Malevolent and Benign – Omnibus Edition, 1st Edition Release 4, © 2010–2025 Chris Gonnerman, R. Kevin Smoot, James Lemon, Matt Sluis, and Contributors. The Basic Fantasy Field Guide textual material is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International; this page adapts that creature to White Box.